Is it a Cheetah?

2e -Twice Exceptional and ELL

Students who are
both 2e-Twice-Exceptional and ELL-English Language Learners
are identified as gifted with one or more disability or condition.

A recent review of 20 years of research on gifted children with specific learning disabilities (SLDs), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) strongly suggests that gifted students can have co-existing disabilities, but identifying such students remains a challenge.

Among all the subgroups of students whose performance in school is commonly studied, English language learners (ELLs) are the least represented in gifted education programs.

A variety of related reasons may account for this state of affairs, but the nature of gifted identification procedures is probably one of the more important causes.

Our fastest growing diverse population in PreK-12 are English language learners (ELLs) from diverse cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. By 2030, English language learners (ELLs) will account for approximately 40% of the entire school-age population in the United States.

SFPS defines gifted as: a school-age person whose intellectual ability paired with subject matter aptitude/achievement, creativity/divergent thinking, or problem-solving/critical thinking is so outstanding that a properly constituted Individual Education Plan (IEP) team decides special education services are required to meet the child's educational needs.

SFPS recognizes that: If an accurate assessment of a child’s ability may be affected by factors including cultural background, linguistic background, socioeconomic status or disability condition(s), an alternative protocol will be used in all (NM) districts to determine the student’s eligibility.

With awareness of the growing ELL population and the difficulty ELL gifted identification presents as well as with an additional challenge of disability, will this alternative protocal accurately identify gifted ELL with a disability?

SFPS recognizes New Mexico Authority that "Assuming appropriate evaluations, a child may properly be determined to be both gifted and a child with a
disability and be entitled to a free appropriate public education for both reasons."

This difficulty in identifying gifted ELL is compounded by assessing disabilities in ELL students.

The single biggest error
made in placing ELLs
into special education is:
misinterpreting
language acquisition as
a learning or language
disability.

The Eligibilty Determination Team has determined that a Specific Learning Disability is not a result of limited english proficiency.

When it is a learning disability and not LEP, Limited English Proficiency, can fear of misinterpretation outweigh Gifted Identification?

At this time we do not reliably know for any child the degree to which limited language proficiency in English may be preventing learning or may be masking a learning disability for particular students, or if limited language proficiency contributes to poor performance on assessments used for eligibility identification that are not culturally and linguistically appropriate for that purpose.

Identification is further exacerbated when a student's Gifted ability masks a disability. The burden placed on giftedness masking a disability interrupts both Gifted Identification and the display of a disability which can be a factor in providing Gifted services.

How do we identify gifted ELL students with a disability when

Limited Language proficiency may mask disabilities and gifted expression?

Misconception: ELLs are not ready to engage in
higher level thinking until they
learn basic skills.
Reality: ELLs are as intelligent as fully proficient
peers and should have frequent
opportunities to engage in higher level
thinking.

This misconception was recognized in Elgin Illinois, 2013, when a court found Hispanic students made up 40% of the population, but only 2% of the identified gifted students. The 2% Hispanic Gifted were also segregated from the general gifted population based on the idea they could not fully participate because they were ELL students, despite fully knowing English and ready to participate in the Gifted program. While not evil or racist in motive, the court found these students were intentionally discriminated against.

National data regarding the number of ELL gifted students is difficult to find because of limited identification processes, while those same students with disabilities is even harder to ascertain and identify. Santa Fe Public Schools has identified more students in the past year following the new method of identification using the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), however this data has not yet been released. It is imperative that the continued use of specific strategies must be utilized to assure that ELL students are identified as Gifted, and language proficiency is eliminated in the process obscuring the disability or giftedness.

“First, a comprehensive individualized evaluation that employs an intra-individual, rather than an interindividual approach toward ability and achievement analysis is critical” (Foley Nicpon et al., 2011, p. 7) to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of gifted students with learning disabilities.

An Intraindividual approach rather than Interindividual is an invaluable evaluation tool for identifying giftedness in Ell students. An Intraindividual approach eliminates language proficiency deterring gifted identification with a concurring presence of a learning disability.

The diagnostician's use of an “intrapersonal” rather than “normative” approach in analyzing test results to identify twice-exceptional children - comparing a child’s scores to the scores of average children- allows clinicians to interpret the discrepancy between the twice-exceptional child’s strengths and weaknesses, and the degree to which relative weaknesses frustrate the full development of the child’s abilities.

Without full and comprehensive assessments...focused or targeted assessment increases the chance that giftedness or a co-existing disability will be missed, especially if parents are asked to state the specific area of disability to be assessed. Eliminating language proficiency is important in identifying a student's strengths and weaknesses.

Creating alternate strategies for identifying Gifted Ell students with disabilities is necessary to fully address their needs and provide them with the appropriate educational support to reach their highest capabilities and address the responsibility of public education to IDEA 2004.

Alternate Strategies may include:

• opportunities for students to engage higher level thinking and learning established
• emphasis on student presentations that inform or argue using evidence rather than errors
• decision identification made by a school level team rather than strict district level qualifications

for identifying 2e & ELL may include:

• use of student background data and work samples
• intraindividual evaluation and assessment
• awareness of cultural and linguistic behaviors that may obscure gifted potential are recognized

In our culture highly gifted children, like cheetahs, are endangered. Like cheetahs, they are here for a reason; they fill a particular niche in the design of life. Zoos, whatever their limitations, may be critical to the continued survival of cheetahs; many are doing their best to offer their captives what they will need eventually to survive in the wild. Schools can do the same for their highly gifted children.
Unless we make a commitment to saving these children, we will continue to lose them and whatever unique benefit their existence might provide for the human species of which they are an essential part.

PARTICIPANTS WILL STOP HERE TO JOIN IN AN EXERCISE TO INFORM AND LEARN AS A TEAM

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